The Audacity of Expediency

I really need a new word for everything Barack Obama is doing these days.  Obama’s positions change based on what will get him elected (flip-flop flop flips).  I’m actually of the opinion he’s a pathological liar.  His campaign is in some extraordinary phase of Darwinian Evolution.  He’s devolving into something base and beyond trifling.

Today’s issue of the Black Agenda Report: Obama Tells Lies

So, please, try to convince me here, that the Black Agenda Report is being racist.   Any time Obama’s lies find the light of day and we discuss them, the rest of us get thwapped with the race card.  If you don’t think a white person can call Obama out on his lies, flip flops, gaffes and corporate shilling, then please, go there and take THEIR word for it.

Paul Street tells it like it is.  Obama is not just another corporate shill.    He’s raised corporate shilling to an artform. One of Obama’s favorite spiels is how his netroots campaign is full of little people giving little bits of money.  Street makes it clear to us that Obama’s source of funds is not us little guys.  Penny Pritzker, his finance committee chair, has churned up bundlers from a veritable who’s who list of bad guys in the Mortgage Meltdown.  GIven Pritzker’s one of the alligators in this swamp, I shouldn’t be too suprised. It is also probably why you NEVER hear Senator Obama talk about some of the biggest rip-offs of poor folks (especially poor minorites and active duty military) these days:  Subprime lending, Payday lending, and other predatory practices aimed at the unbanked.  This would include making certain no bank branches are available in rural, urban, or other areas where many poor folk live so they are forced to rely on these loans sharks with legal status.  If Senator Obama is concerned about inner city blacks, why is he taking so much money from the very people that fleece them every chance they get?  This is consistent with his relationship with slumlord Rezko.  Let the little people live in slums while Obama gets a sweetheart deal on a mansion and a sideyard.

The top contributors list also explains why Obama’s alternate energy polices frequently include nuclear energy (while he knew NOTHING of the Hanford site while campaigning in Oregon) and ethanol (a really, really inefficient alternative fuel that is a windfall for corporate farming).  Obama’s progressive politics appear to be solidly based on the market.  The highest bidder wins the Obama treatment.

“Too bad Obama is disproportionately funded by people from the top 1 percent of Americans, who own nearly 40 percent of the nation’s wealth and who account for more than 80 percent of campaign contributions above $250. Through April of 2008, the Campaign Finance Institute reports, Obama received more than $89 million in contributions of $1000 or more, just $8 million less than McCain’s total take ($97.3 million)[1].

According to the Center for Responsive Politics Obama’s top contributors include Goldman Sachs (#1 at $571,000), UBSAG (#3 at $365,000), JP Morgan Chase (#4 at $362,000), Citigroup (#5 at $358,000), Lehman Bros. (#7 at 4319,000), Google (#8 at $318,000), multinational corporate law firm Sidley Austin LLP (#10 at $294,000)and nuclear energy powerhouse Exelon (#15 at $236,000}[2].

Note:

1. Read at http://www.cfinst.org/pr/prRelease.aspx?ReleaseID=191%5D

2. Read at http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N000096380

No wonder Obama doesn’t want $3 from each American Taxpayer.  He can get a lot more for those Wall Street bundlers.  For more information from Street, and more lists of lies, please go to the Black Agenda Report.  Also, read his list of suggestions on what TRUE campaign finance reform would look like, why Obama lies and how this hurts the future of black political voices, and what authentic progressives and folks interested in poverty issues and providing opportunity to minorities really support.  Here’s that link.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=676&Itemid=1

Oh, and all you trifilin’ people out there … stop playing that damned race card!  You’re de-sensitizing folks to the REAL racial injustices that still exist in this country.  Try taking on Subprime lending practices or predatory lending!  Try asking for REAL UNIVERSAL health care instead of Obama’s watered down shill.  Try equallizing resources among schools!  This is just a suggestion from a teacher trying to keep it real in the Ninth WARD of New Orleans.